


Algophilia

by leahalexis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Hale/masochism, F/M, Handcuffs, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, freud - Freeform, gratuitous use of classroom lesson as metaphor, the (metaphorical) ghost of Kate Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leahalexis/pseuds/leahalexis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The fetish is a stand-in, a method to ease anxiety. A fetish relieves the mind temporarily, but in the end, it does nothing to address the source of the anxiety itself. It’s a distraction—a band-aid, not a panacea. And so the fetishizer returns to it, seeking release, again and again. Like an addict.  Like someone reading a story over and over again, expecting that, this time, the ending will change.”</p><p>(A character study of Allison Argent, circa post-season 2/early season 3.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Algophilia

She’s back in that room below the Hale house where her world turned inside out, with Kate and the dust and the reek of decay and Derek Hale chained to a grate, snapping, snarling. 

The spotlight highlights the grotesque bulge of his brow, the cut of every muscle in his chest, the glistening path of his sweat where it’s dripped down his skin. 

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Kate is saying, voice low and smoky, and they’re the right words, but something’s off, something isn’t right. 

The electrical wires are missing and he isn’t just bare from the waist up, he’s completely exposed—naked, and hard, cock wet and sore-looking, purple and swollen, bobbing out from the jut of his hips. Kate reaches out and touches, just a finger, light down its length, and Derek rattles his chains. Roars. 

Kate laughs and looks back to her. “You want a turn, baby girl?” 

* 

Alison wakes clutching the neck of her shirt and gasping in air, sweat matting loose stands of her hair to her face and neck where they’ve escaped from her braid. It’s dark out. Still dark out. The moonlight coming in from her window barely touches the end of her bed. 

There’s heat still thick and viscous and shameful between her thighs and it makes her want to retch. 

She takes slow breaths, willing the dream away. In. Out. In . . . 

* 

This semester, she’s taking psychology. She needed an elective, and she’s already tried and failed at all the rest: art, poetry, music. Beacon Hills doesn’t offer archery, or self-hatred. Not for a grade, anyway. 

It’s a Thursday, and their teacher is talking about the concept of the fetish. 

“The fetish is a stand-in,” Ms. Engels says, “a method to ease anxiety. For Freud, that anxiety was about the loss of the phallus.” 

Most of the class snickers. 

“Other theorists,” Ms. Engels says loudly, giving them a stern look, “have understood that anxiety more broadly: as being about intimacy, or powerlessness, or loss of control.” 

 _Fetish_ , Allison writes down. _Powerlessness._ _Loss of control_. 

“But the important takeaway here is that the fetish doesn’t ever work. It relieves the mind temporarily, but in the end, it does nothing to address the source of the anxiety itself. It’s a distraction—a band-aid, not a panacea. And so the fetishizer returns to it, seeking release, again and again. Like an addict.” 

Allison drags her pencil across the notebook, hard enough to rip the page. 

“Like someone reading a story over and over again, expecting that, _this_ time, the ending will change.” 

* 

When she remembers that night, that room, it feels like a fever dream. Out of time. Unreal. 

The Derek Hale she knows outside that room is a paragon of self-containment, disrupted only by brief flashes of rage, and even those are rare, now. At first, all it took was her speaking. But over time, as the two of them have eased into a troubled truce, even the rage has subsided, leaving something she can’t quite identify. Something like emptiness, but not quite. 

Against the wall he shows the world, she feels brittle and erratic, out of control. Half the time she’s near him her throat is tight, like she’s about to cry, or scream; the rest, she feels so distant from her emotions that it's like she’s deadened inside. 

He watches her sometimes, with that not-emptiness, and she doesn’t know what it means. He never says anything, so she usually tries to ignore it, as if by doing so she can make those looks not mean anything, not exist. 

It’s not like they see each other very much. Around, sometimes, because Beacon Hills is a small town, but otherwise, only when something happens. When someone’s in trouble. 

She doesn’t really know why she shows up, every time she notices Stiles getting tense and Scott distracted. She’s second-string back up at most, her best weapons locked up somewhere she can’t find. Things are still awkward between her and Scott. She’s lying to her father. But she just keeps coming. 

This particular time, a few months into the new school year, Stiles even texted to let her know where and when. They’re in Derek’s loft, Scott and Stiles bent together over the table, arguing over logistics. It’s just the four of them tonight; she doesn’t know where everyone else is. 

Derek’s eyes are on her again. 

Her back stiffens as soon as she feels them, and her chin goes up. Reflex; she always feels self-conscious, defensive under that particular hard, unblinking stare. She keeps her voice low. “What?” 

“Your hair like that,” he says, voice as blank as his expression. “It looks more like hers.” 

She doesn’t have to ask who “her” is. There’s only one “her” with the two of them. A laughing, sneering ghost that lingers in every room they’re both in. Waiting for her moment, Allison imagines. Waiting to take them over. What Allison doesn’t know is which of the two of them she’s waiting to possess. 

Back in her room that night, she touches her hair in front of the mirror, and thinks about what Derek said. She hadn’t thought of that, when she changed her hair—the color, the cut, the style. But she has pictures of Kate back then, not too much different from the way she was when she died, not really. And he isn’t wrong. It looks like hers.

Allison hadn’t thought of that, and that’s what scares her most. 

* 

These days, Allison is trying to be careful. Careful that whatever’s happening inside of her, it doesn’t reach the surface. Doesn’t reach her eyes. And that whatever foreign impulse stirs inside her, whoever other people try to make her into, _she’s_ the one who gets to decide. Who she is. What she does. 

That’s what she wants, at least. 

 _I’m not a girly girl_ , she remembers saying to Scott right after they met, late at night, over the sound of the rain on the vet’s office roof. 

Later, in her car, blue and white lights flashing silent behind her, Stiles’ dad at the window: _I swear I’m not like this_. 

She says it all the time. She’s always saying it. 

 _This isn’t me. This is_ not _me_. 

If she’s careful enough, she thinks, desperate, she can make it true.

* 

 _Don’t think I’ve missed the way you look at him_ , Kate whispers in her ear when she forgets to be so careful. Just before sleep, in between dreams; with her hand between her legs. When she’s too tired, too hurt, to guard against her. 

 _He’s just so_ pretty _, isn’t he? He always was, you know. And so innocent. So easy to just reach out and_ take _._

_You’d like that, wouldn’t you? He’s quite a ride. He was even then._

_But I know you can handle him_ , Kate says, soft and damp and too close in her ear, lips ghosting over the skin.

 _I know you’re just like me._  

* 

Derek uses the same gym she visits in the afternoons sometimes, too keyed up for homework, when running isn’t enough. When forced to, they acknowledge each other, tight nods before looking away when their eyes catch. 

So it’s a surprise and yet not a surprise at all when he breaks custom and approaches her as she’s finishing a set at the punching bag. She’s pushing herself more today, hitting harder and longer, the dull throb of her knuckles and the ache of her muscles a _good_ feeling, something concrete to focus on. She can handle the pain. She doesn’t believe in easy anymore. 

She’s breathing hard by the end, braces her hands on her knees when she stops, acutely conscious of the way the sport top she’s wearing leaves her stomach vulnerable, bared, and breathes and breathes. 

“Allison,” he says after a moment, like saying her name helps remind him who she is, and who she’s not. 

She turns her head to look at him over her shoulder; he’s standing there impassively in a gray tank and darker sweats, but his hands are at his sides, not crossed over his chest. It’s Derek for non-threatening. If she weren’t so tired, she’d probably laugh. 

“What?” she asks, short of breath and patience. With effort, she stands and turns to face him. It’s polite— _polite_ —not defensive. 

He waits until she’s turned. Until they can see each other’s hands, free of sharp points. She curls hers into fists, pulling the tape she’s wrapped around her knuckles tight. 

“Everything’s . . . okay?” he asks, then grimaces like the question was painful for him to even ask. 

“Everything’s fine,” she says automatically. She glances back at the punching bag, slumped heavy from the ceiling, swaying slightly on its chain. And then she tells him the truth, because she thinks: if anyone will understand, it’s probably him. “I just get kind of angry, sometimes.” 

It’s the first time she’s ever said something that’s made him smile, and it’s not even really a smile at all. Not a good one, anyway—it’s grim, just a tight pull of lips. If there is humor there, it’s the blackest she’s ever seen. If his lips pulled back any further, she thinks, he’d be bearing his teeth. 

“I’m familiar with the feeling,” is all he says. He looks at the punching bag, too, then back at her. “This helps.” 

“This helps,” she confirms. 

He studies her for a minute, and she’s too tired to get her back up—just stands there, waiting. Waiting for him to find whatever it is he’s looking to find, this time. 

“If this ever—isn’t enough,” he says finally, “if this ever stops working for you. There are—other ways.” 

She furrows her brow. 

“If you ever need that,” he says. The muscle in his jaw flexes, but it’s the only sign that what he’s saying means anything to him at all. “You know where I live.” 

* 

The punching bag stops working. It doesn’t happen immediately after Derek speaks to her in the gym, but it isn’t long after, either. She wishes she didn’t see the connection, but she does. Because he was offering her—something else. And she has trouble letting go of a mystery—letting go of what she doesn’t understand. 

The day she finally gives in, it’s the third night in the row she hasn’t been able to sleep. 

When she knocks, he answers, then wordlessly steps back, pulls the door open further. 

There’s only one reason for her to show up, alone, at the door of his loft. They both know that. She’d never be here otherwise, especially this late. She's never come before. 

She follows him inside. Pushes the door shut behind her, because he’s left it for her, already retreated further into the room. 

By the time she turns, he’s propped himself up against one of the columns a respectable distance away, watching her, hands tucked into his pockets in a way she’s only seen him do once before, the first time they met, before she knew who he was. What he was. He’s wearing a shirt but he’s barefoot, button on his jeans left undone. She wonders what he was doing before she arrived, if he got dressed just for her. 

She glances around the loft, looking for . . . she doesn’t know what. She’s a little taken aback by how bright the moonlight is through the large front windows, this late, but maybe that’s why Derek chose it. 

Finally, she clears her throat. “The other day, you said—” 

She pauses, not sure how to go on. He’d implied he could help her—would help her. That there were other ways to push back the restless anger beneath her skin. But he hadn’t said how. She doesn’t even know what she’s here asking for. 

“Have a seat,” he says, and she shakes her head, wrapping her arms around herself, and says, “That’s okay.” 

He smiles slightly, faintly. Then he eases himself slowly up from the pillar, like he’s afraid she might spook, and comes toward her. She stands her ground. 

When he’s still a foot away from her, he asks, voice low, “You’re sure you want this?” 

She huffs. “I don’t know what _this_ is!” 

He raises his right hand instead of answering, and waits for her to look. She follows it with her eyes as he lifts it slowly, purposefully, to her face, until it rests along her jaw. Just as slowly, his thumb presses into her lower lip, drawing it down. He lowers his head. Covers the space he’s made with his mouth. 

And she thinks, faintly: _Oh._  

He drags his tongue along her teeth deliberately, like a challenge, and instead of pushing him away, she pushes back. Grabs his shirt to close the space he’s left between them, shoves herself against him, sucks hard on his tongue. And it’s good like the punching bag is good, more like fighting than kissing, except Derek isn’t fighting back. He isn’t giving an inch but he isn’t fighting, either. He’s just . . . letting her. 

She breaks off and stumbles back, stunned, pressing her fingers to her mouth. 

He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there. Waits. 

She licks her lips. Opens her mouth. Says, “Take off your shirt.” 

He does. He pulls it over his head, drops it at his feet. 

They look each other. There’s heat beginning to suffuse her body, to spread under her skin. 

Then, slowly, she nods. Assenting. Because the heat is dampening the restlessness. She doesn’t know if it’s better, but it’s new, and that’s enough. 

“You’re sure,” he says. 

“I’m sure.” 

She takes off her jacket, drapes it over the back of a chair, as he retrieves something from a cabinet set back against the wall. It’s a box, she sees when he brings it to the table, secured with a padlock, which he opens with a key. He turns and presses something into her hands, before stepping back. Handcuffs. Two sets. 

“The metal’s mixed with a small amount of wolfsbane,” he says quietly, and she wonders if this is him offering her protection. He explains: “Makes them harder to break.” 

Harder. Which isn’t the same as impossible.

She nods, mutely, and glances down again at the metal, cold and heavy in her hands. “So you want me to . . .” 

“Yes,” he says. He closes his eyes, just briefly, and when he looks at her again, his pupils are large and dark, the irises devoured. “Please.” 

Her fingers tighten on the cuffs. “Where?” she asks. “The—bed?” It’s just a few feet away, sitting spare and Spartan and silent, lit up by the moon. There are no shadows there to hide in. 

“The bed’s fine,” he says. And holds out one wrist, palm up, for her to take. 

“Tell me if anything’s too tight,” she says to him as he settles himself on the mattress, on his back. She’s careful as she closes the metal around each wrist, watches his face for discomfort as she fastens the other ends to two of the hooks she finds on the back of the headboard, between it and the wall. 

He isn’t looking at her when he says, “It’s better if they’re tight.” 

It’s not until he’s shackled to the headboard, arms out to either side, that she hesitates, looks to him in question. 

“Jeans,” he says softly, and she blows out a breath. “Right.” 

The button, of course, is already undone; she fumbles anyway, with the zipper. He lifts his hips to let her pull them over, down his thighs, and off, until he’s lying naked and exposed in front of her, arranged spread out and restrained across his own bed. Not defenseless—never defenseless, not totally, not anymore—but close. 

He’s—beautiful. His body is unmarked and strong, skin almost glowing in the moonlight. 

She drags her eyes from his body, to his face. “What should I—?” 

“Anything you want,” he says, eyes steady on hers. 

She puts one knee on the bed beside him. The mattress under the bedspread is hard, too hard to be comfortable, but comfort has never seemed to be Derek’s motivating drive. She puts a careful hand on his chest, then pulls her other leg up and then over until she’s straddling his hips, all that strength and bulk caught there underneath her. Still and silent. 

The skirt of her dress fans out around her, and she lifts up, briefly, to free it from where it’s caught behind her thighs. Then she shifts back, far enough to be able to look down and see where he’s started to thicken. 

She reaches out her hand and wraps her fingers around him. It’s not as big as it was in her dream, but it’s big enough. It’s—normal, nothing unusual. Just another cock. 

 _Oh, sweetie_ , Kate whispers, warmth and condescension, like she’s laughing. Allison grits her teeth and breathes deep. 

She’s far from being a virgin, and not just because of Scott. But she doesn’t know what to do here, doesn’t know what’s expected of her. She shifts forward again, bracing on Derek’s chest, to check his expression; the cotton of her underwear catches on his skin, making her hiss and drop her head. 

Derek lets out his own breath above her, but his voice is calm when he speaks. “You know what you need,” he tells her. “So take it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, whole body tense. “I don’t—” 

“I’m telling you to _take it_.” 

A shudder racks her body as his voice rasps the last two words; it’s nearly a growl, and her nails bite reflexively into his skin. He jerks. Arches up— _into her_ , not away. Calculated this time, she scrapes down his chest, dragging harder, deeper, digging in. His body jerks again, like he’s been shocked, and she’s rewarded with angry red marks that his skin just swallows up, taking it. Like whatever she does, it isn’t really real.

“Good,” he grunts, and something breaks open inside her. 

It’s easy from there to yank the thin strip of cotton between her legs to one side, lift up on her knees, impale herself with one hard, satisfying drop. The pulled-taut fabric of her underwear must rub into him where she’s pushed it aside, edge cutting into his skin, biting at the hair, but he just lets out a shuddery breath, pulls his knees up to shift the angle slightly. Making it better. 

 _There you go_ , Kate whispers. 

She stifles a moan. 

The loft in the moonlight is silent as she works her hips, works his cock, corkscrewing down over and over, harder each time, feeling the strain in her thighs. She lifts her hands to her breasts and squeezes, relishing the bite of her own nails where the neck of her dress dips low, leaving his blood on her skin. 

 _What did I tell you?_ Kate purrs, like she’s there in the corner, watching with approval. 

Derek’s eyes are closed, mouth set in a hard line. But he’s still hard, _throbbing_ inside her, and he can’t seem to help his gasp when she clenches and pulls the right way. 

 _See? You can do anything you want to him_ , she says. _He won’t stop you_. 

She wants to rip him open. She wants to take everything from him, until she’s all that’s left, and then take that too. 

 _He wants it. He_ likes _it._  

And it just winds her higher. 

“What was it like,” she croaks, “with her?” Throat dry, fisting her hands in the bedspread just below his biceps, getting more leverage. Arching her low back and swallowing a cry. 

She’s starting to get hot and shock-y, sweating now. 

“Was she soft,” she’s asking, “did she pretend she was soft,” unable to stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth, unable to _stop_ , “pretend she was _helpless_?” 

Kate’s there, in her ear, still laughing, always laughing ( _Sweetie, everything’s a joke to me_ ), and she can’t make her _shut up_ , and she’s writhing, she’s _right there_ , just needs something to pitch her over the edge. 

“Did you think—” His hips jerk up, punching into her, hitting _just right_ and she cries out. “Did she make you think she needed it? Needed you?” 

He growls. A warning, maybe. She doesn’t care. 

“How did _she_ fuck you, Derek? Did she ride you, too?” 

For the first time, he’s yanking against the chains, twisting under her thighs. But he doesn’t buck her off. She knows he could. 

And then he just stops fighting, even as she’s still battering him with her hips, her thighs, her words. He stops writhing. He goes still. 

“Tell me,” she demands, high-pitched and desperate, almost hysterical. Her voice is cracking as she shoves him into her harder and faster, harder and faster. “ _Tell me_.” 

Derek raises his head and looks her straight in the eye, and even like this, body quaking now with the effort of keeping motionless, his gaze is unflinching. Hard. 

Evenly, calmly—so calm it makes her want to scream and slash and gouge, makes her crave the sharp slice of her knives as they plunge into flesh, the stick and drag of muscle and skin when she yanks them out—he says, “Just like this, Allison. She used to do it just like this.” 

And her throat closes up and her vision blurs and her whole body tightens and snaps like the string of a bow and she only realizes after—slumped over his chest and shaking—that what happened was she came. 

* 

For the first time in months, it’s quiet inside her head. She lays with her cheek pressed against Derek’s chest, grateful. She’s sore already, worn inside and out, but it’s good. She feels steadier.

It’s at least a minute before she can pull herself upright and gingerly lift herself off of him. He’s still hard, she notices, as he slides out of her. 

But he doesn’t move, doesn’t shift, doesn’t anything. He’s silent, barely breathing, and her mind catches on that detail, on the thought of it, worrying it over. It’s like he’s a statue, made of stone. 

Like something she’s just used. 

And maybe that’s what he was offering—she thinks it was, at least—but it’s not right. It doesn’t feel right. 

Holding her breath, she drags her eyes up to his face. His eyes are closed. 

“Derek,” she says softly, still kneeling beside him on the bed, and he shakes his head, eyes still shut. She presses her lips together to keep her chin from trembling. 

He didn’t even tell her where the key was; she didn’t see it in the box. She knows he can get free even without it, but she can’t just leave him like this. Not like—not like Kate would. 

She hurt him, she thinks. She can’t undo that. But— 

He’s still not looking at her. Licking her lips, she bends down, takes a deep breath, and opens her mouth over him, around him, sinking down. 

She feels his intake of breath as much as hears it, when he realizes what she’s doing. She presses down on his hips to keep him still. 

“Alli—” he starts as her throat closes around him, and chokes on the word as she gags and pushes harder, further, jaw achy with the stretch of it, moisture burning in her eyes. But it’s good, that it hurts. It _should_ hurt. 

The taste of her own body’s secretions is sour where they’ve coated his skin, collected in the crease of his foreskin and along the underside of the head. She tongues them away and lets him in deeper, swallows him down. 

She’s not Kate. She can show him that. She’s _not_. 

She sets the pace slow but intense, long sucks and generous drags of her tongue, and the tension in his hips eases under her hands. She keeps her eyes shut tight, tears close to the surface the whole time she works, and when he comes down her throat in long, tight pulses it’s almost like she's being washed clean. 

 _I’m sorry_ , she tries to say with the soft slide of her tongue as she swallows all of it, all of it she can. So it’ll be good for him. _I’m so sorry._

She curls her tongue around the softening flesh a final time, then pulls off, uncertain, as she looks at him. 

“Derek,” she whispers. “Say something. Please.” 

There’s a deep flush that’s spread across his chest, his hair dark and damp with sweat, the muscles of his stomach trembling. He’s staring at the ceiling, looking more undone than she’s ever seen him, even the times he’s nearly bled out in front of her, even that night with Kate. 

When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet, empty of emotion. 

“She used to do that too.”

**Author's Note:**

> algophilia (n): deriving pleasure or satisfaction from one’s own pain or the pain of others
> 
> (Probably not a word that’s going to show up on Scott’s Word of Day app.)


End file.
